He still looked as if he didn’t want to go near it. She stood and took hold of his hand.
“Unless the people inside it can levitate, it is empty.” She squeezed his hand and looked in the direction of his gaze, over her shoulder at the building. “Touching it is the only way to know it is real.”
When she looked back at him, he looked closer to agreeing to go near it, but still reluctant.
“I could go alone.”
The moment those words left her lips, his gaze leaped to her and darkened, his lips drawing back off his teeth as he growled.
“You will go nowhere near that place without me.” He tightened his grip on her hand, interlinking their fingers, drawing her focus to their joined hands.
She liked the way he held it so fiercely and possessively, as if he was silently staking a claim on her, declaring to anyone in the area that she was his. She liked how it made her feel as if she was silently staking a claim on him too as she pressed her fingers harder into his skin, tightly clutching his hand.
He glanced down at her, a light in his eyes that said he liked it when she did that, when she held him as possessively as he held her.
Because he thought that when they left this realm, when she was home with her family, this thing between them would end.
She needed to find a way to convince him that wasn’t the case at all.
He led her to the building and as soon as he was close enough, he touched it with his hand, shuddered and snarled, and then twisted away from it. “It is real.”
She didn’t try to stop him as he strode away from it, knew in her heart that it hurt him to be here, that it had taken a lot of courage for him to get close enough to this place to touch it and see it was real and not an illusion.
When they were a good distance from it, she looked back at it. “It looks like it was a castle.”
“A castle?” He scoffed and glanced at her, some of the darkness lifting from his eyes. “It does not look like a castle. My castle looks like a castle.”
She tried to picture what his castle might look like. It was probably grand and imposing, with towers that were high enough that they could be seen for miles across the black landscape.
“I would like to see it someday… perhaps when you create me some golems to test my powers on. Of course, it might take months… possibly years… to master my power.” She smiled when he gave her a look, one that held shock but also pleasure.
Because she wanted to spend time with him once this was all over? She took him in from head to toe and back again. Who wouldn’t want to spend time with him?
Besides, she wasn’t done breaking down his walls.
“You didn’t think you could get rid of me that easily, did you?” She stepped up to him, tiptoed and cupped his nape in both hands, and lured him down for a kiss.
He growled against her mouth and kissed her hard, banded his arms around her back and tugged her against him, holding her so tightly that she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t care. She loved the way he held her like this. It made her feel as if he would never let her go.
Thanatos swept her up into his arms and kicked off, kissed her for a few seconds more as he flew. She broke the kiss this time. The thought of crash landing was frightening enough to make her relinquish his lips.
He flew with her, over mountain ranges and across valleys. Those valleys grew larger and larger, the mountains smaller, and far in the distance there was a cluster of lights like golden stars.
“It is a town.” Thanatos swept down to land with her and looked in all directions. “We should find somewhere to rest. The town looks close, but it is at least another few hours’ flight to the border of this realm where we will be able to teleport.”
And he was tired.
She nodded.
Tensed as he set her down and her feet made contact with the earth.
Thanatos went rigid too, his gaze darting in all directions. “What is it?”
She yanked the dagger from his left vambrace as close to one hundred creatures, each as large as she was, closed in on them from just beyond the mountains.
“We are not alone.”
Chapter 25
Thanatos’s first urge was to grab Calindria and fly, despite how tired he was and how deeply his wings ached, the muscles so fatigued that those closest to his shoulders trembled and twitched. His second urge was to grab her and run.
He went with that one, seizing her hand in a bruising grip and turning in the direction of the mountains that formed a towering cragged wall between him and the nearest town.
He didn’t need to tell Calindria to run. She was quick to break into a sprint beside him, her blonde hair bouncing against the shoulders of her black tunic with each long stride.
“There are enemies this way,” she panted, her grip on the dagger she clutched tightening as her blue eyes scanned the mountains.
“The ones behind us?” He wanted to glance that way to see for himself, but doing so meant slowing his pace and he trusted Calindria’s senses.
“Closing in fast.” She threw a swift look over her shoulder. “I will slow them down.”
Before he could ask what she intended to do, the ground shook beneath his boots, a tremor rocking it as the sound of stone splitting filled the thick air. He did glance over his shoulder now, his silver gaze widening as great vines burst from the ground, forming a wall at least four hundred feet wide across the valley basin.
He cursed as the warriors appeared on the other side of it.
Calindria looked back again and then faced forwards, her pace picking up speed in time with his. “That is not fair.”
He had to agree with her on that one. The males had simply teleported beyond her barrier, could use an ability that neither he nor Calindria could in this realm. The fact that they were unaffected by certain powers in this realm had to mean they were working for the demigoddess.
“They look like the ones who guarded my cage.” Calindria’s breaths came faster and he could sense her fatigue as she summoned another wall of vines, one the warriors easily teleported past again.
“Conserve your strength.” He eyed the wall of warriors again. All of them wore only leather pants and all of them were large, their builds powerful. Each grasped a long black spear.
He ducked and pulled Calindria to the right when one of the brutes launched one of those spears at them. It thudded into the ground where he had been, narrowly missing Calindria, and a curse pealed from his lips again. That had been too close. He had pulled Calindria into the line of fire when he should have moved her to her left instead, ensuring her safety.
They had to be close to the mountains now.
He looked ahead of them.
“Godsdammit,” Calindria spat as she spotted what he had and skidded to a halt.
Warriors had appeared at the base of the mountain, forming a wall between them and the only route to freedom.
“Prepare yourself.” He released her hand and drew his sword, pulled down a breath and readied himself, emptying his mind and honing his battle instincts.
Beside him, Calindria readied her dagger. Her hand shook, betraying her nerves. He placed his hand on her forearm to steady it and she glanced at him, lingered as her eyes locked with his.
“It is you or them, little goddess. Remember that.” He didn’t want her getting ideas about pulling her punches because she didn’t want to hurt other living souls with her touch. If she succumbed to her softer side, to the good heart that still beat within her chest despite the ordeal she had been through, then she was as good as dead.